Four jurisdictions where we have read the actual rule, technical guide or rejection table — and what each one asks for. Every entry names the controlling document. Check the court's current version before relying on it; local rules change.
| Jurisdiction | Controlling document | PDF/A requirement | The mechanics that get filings rejected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida MyFLCourtAccess | Florida Courts PDF/A FAQ, published through the portal | PDF/A-2a preferred; PDF/A-2b accepted for scanned documents | Encryption prohibited, letter page size, fonts must be embedded, and scrubbing metadata can break the declaration |
| Illinois Courts of Review | Electronic Filing Rejection Standards, effective 1 Sept 2024 | No single named flavour — enforced through a rejection table mapped to rule authority | Illegible or incomplete documents, missing bookmarks where required, file-mechanics failures listed against rule numbers |
| New York AD1 Appellate Division, First Dept. | Formatting Specifications and Guidelines for Electronically Filed Documents | PDFs shall be certified PDF/A compliant | Bookmark structure specified in detail, 100 MB limit, non-compliant documents may be returned and re-filed |
| Ninth Circuit CA9 | Circuit Rule 25-5(d) + Technical Guide to Working with PDF Documents (2020) | Text-searchable PDF mandatory; PDF/A is not the headline requirement | PDF must come from the original word-processing file; scanning discouraged, images need OCR |
The same file can pass one court's rules and fail another's: Florida wants a named flavour, New York wants a certified one plus a bookmark tree, the Ninth Circuit mostly cares that the text is selectable. "Is this PDF/A?" is the start of the question, not the end of it.